On Saturday, Celtic are back on the road as we travel to Warrington. Seventh-placed Warrington are one place and one point below Celtic, but do have two games in hand over us. Kick-off is 3pm.

Warrington are balanced home and away this season, having lost two, drawn one and won three both home and away. They won their last match 1-0, away at Ashton United, whilst their last home match was a 3-2 defeat by Basford and prior to that, a 2-2 draw with Buxton means their last home win was at the start of September when they beat Gainsborough 1-0 to record their only win in their last four home matches. Warrington are something of 1-0 experts, having four of their six wins this season being 1-0. This suggests a strong defence that nicks a goal, but they have also beaten FC United 2-0 and Atherton Collieries 2-0 (both at home).

In the nine games they managed last season, Warrington were unbeaten at home, with four wins and a draw, whilst in the first curtailed season, they only lost three at home all season, beaten by FC United, Morpeth and Celtic. They were also strong away with only two losses, though with 8 draws, it seemed they had fine-tuned snatching points. Taken into account with their third place finish in the last completed season, Warrington have cemented their credentials as a top-five team and with their games in hand, there is no reason to believe that will not be the case again this season, giving Celtic a tough match on Saturday.

Vying for the league’s golden boot this season, Warrington’s current top scorer is Jordan Buckley who has seven goals so far, two behind Ewan Bange of Bamber Bridge. Buckley has scored in all four of Warrington’s last matches, grabbing the winner at Ashton last Saturday. On average, they’re scoring 1.5 goals per game at home (1.3 overall) and conceding 1.2 goals. They’ve had 3 clean sheets (six overall) and failed to score once (twice overall).

We didn’t get to meet Warrington last season, but in the curtailed season we beat them 2-1 at their place thanks to goals from Jonathon Ustabasi and Neil Kengni, then losing 2-0 in the reverse fixture. Indeed, we have a remarkable record at Warrington having visited six times in the last thirty years, winning five and drawing once. Since our return to the Northern Premier League, we have won two of our three meetings.

Warrington’s last match was the 1-0 away win over Ashton, in which Warrington lined up as:
1. Daniel Atherton
2. James Baillie
3. Edmund Clarke
4. James Harris
5. Mark Roberts
6. Matty Regan
7. Luke Griffiths
8. Josh Amis
9. Bohan Dixon
10. Jordan Buckley
11. Sean Williams

Celtic’s last match was the fabulous 5-0 home win over Grantham Town, in which we lined up as:
1. Jahquil Hill
2. Douglas Nyaupembe
3. Ashley Smith-Brown
4. Sam Wedgbury
5. Connor O’Grady
6. Keenan Quansah
7. Jay Fitzmartin
8. Charley Doyle
9. Marcus Dackers
10. Scott Bakkor
11. Justin Johnson

A win on Tuesday could see Celtic enter the top three, whereas a loss could see three teams leapfrog us.